Aren't the bail outs anti capitalism??

Mutiny! he cried

What happened to this talk of 'the freedom to succeed or fail'??? Why are the bail outs going to only huge corporations? What about small businesses? I thought according to the tenets of capitalism if you fail it's your fault and you weren't good enough but I guess not if you have former ceos of lehman brothers as sec of the treasury, that just applies to small business

catefrances

well this is what happens when you embrace a soul sucking system like the one capitalism can and has become. you leave it to its own devices, its gonna eat itself and all the richie riches suddenly discover socialist values of the bail out. private profits. public losses. :rolleyes:

slightofjeff

It's sort of a neccessary evil, and it makes me sick to my stomach, but most of these bailouts are unavoidable.

If, say, citicorp goes under ... nobody can get a loan, and hundreds of other businesses go under ... and thousands of people are out of a job ... and thousands default on their mortgages and car loans ... and other banks fail ... and the entire economy is fucked.

If Mom & Pop's VCR repair shop goes out of business ... only Mom & Pop are fucked.

I hate the idea of these bailouts, and part of me thinks "Fuck GM. Let them fail, if they've been so mismanaged." But the effects on the economy at large would be catastrophic.

catefrances

slightofjeff wrote:

...I hate the idea of these bailouts, and part of me thinks "Fuck GM. Let them fail, if they've been so mismanaged." But the effects on the economy at large would be catastrophic.

i agree. my skin crawls at the necessity of this.

our economies are basically reliant on gambling. how fabulous is that? :rolleyes:

Mutiny! he cried

slightofjeff wrote:

It's sort of a neccessary evil, and it makes me sick to my stomach, but most of these bailouts are unavoidable.

If, say, citicorp goes under ... nobody can get a loan, and hundreds of other businesses go under ... and thousands of people are out of a job ... and thousands default on their mortgages and car loans ... and other banks fail ... and the entire economy is fucked.

If Mom & Pop's VCR repair shop goes out of business ... only Mom & Pop are fucked.

I hate the idea of these bailouts, and part of me thinks "Fuck GM. Let them fail, if they've been so mismanaged." But the effects on the economy at large would be catastrophic.

Then bail out the ppl who can't get a loan instead of the mismanaged firms who got a little too carried away w/ speculations and derivatives and casino capitalism and most of all their greed. Why help the greedy instead of mom and pop's vcr repair shop?

Mutiny! he cried

Tonight on Lou Dobbs they showed how much the companies who are asking for bail outs (the 3 auto companies) and those who already got them (AIG and so on) have spent this year on lobbying and it was crazy the tens of millions each these companies have spent so far!

I'd feel better if along w/ the bail outs theu regulated these industries more and reversed the deregulation of Clinton which helped lead to this mess by allowing all these mergers of securities, investments, finacial, insurance....industries

Commy

Mutiny! he cried wrote:

Tonight on Lou Dobbs they showed how much the companies who are asking for bail outs (the 3 auto companies) and those who already got them (AIG and so on) have spent this year on lobbying and it was crazy the tens of millions each these companies have spent so far!

I'd feel better if along w/ the bail outs theu regulated these industries more and reversed the deregulation of Clinton which helped lead to this mess by allowing all these mergers of securities, investments, finacial, insurance....industries

I'm still trying to figure out why these aren't called handouts. Bailouts? there's NO accountability. Companies like AIG are spending money on advertising and lobbying, not even trying to put it back into the economy. Its corporate welfare....and Clinton is as much at fault as Bush or any US president. The same economic advisers that got us into this mess are going to be the ones advising the next president. yeah.


EDIT: and yes these handouts are anti capitalism. They go against the very core of capitalism-Laissez-faire-let the market figure itself out. yeah that's gone. Its called Neo Liberalism, aka corporate welfare.

Mutiny! he cried

slightofjeff wrote:

It's sort of a neccessary evil, and it makes me sick to my stomach, but most of these bailouts are unavoidable.

If, say, citicorp goes under ... nobody can get a loan, and hundreds of other businesses go under ... and thousands of people are out of a job ... and thousands default on their mortgages and car loans ... and other banks fail ... and the entire economy is fucked.

If Mom & Pop's VCR repair shop goes out of business ... only Mom & Pop are fucked.

I hate the idea of these bailouts, and part of me thinks "Fuck GM. Let them fail, if they've been so mismanaged." But the effects on the economy at large would be catastrophic.

or think of it this way -

Say I have like 10 kids but I have a high paying job where technically I could take very good care of then. But instead I blow my money on stupid shit like vacations, cars, umbrella stands...and I come to you and say "But Jeff, how will my kids eat or get clothes for school??" I'm sure you would feel somewhat compassionate towards these children, right?? But would you just hand me money w/o saying something like 'use this to feed and clothe them'? Would you be mad to learn I used some of that money to fly myself and others to England for a hunting trip after I used some of that money to go to a 'retreat' like AIG did? Nothing personal but if you just handed me money like that after knowing how badly I mismanaged my money you would be a fucking idiot and I doubt you would do that, btw.

Wouldn't it make more sense for you to buy the clothes and food yourself instead of giving the money to me or in some way making it clear the money you gave me is ONLY to feed and clothe my kids instead of me wasting it or doing whatever I wanted?

If mom and pop's shop is on the verge of collapse we say it's their fault, they weren't good enough to make it and that's how capitalism and the american dream works! But if it's a huge corporation that spends tens of millions bribing politicians or has former ceos as sec of the treasury somethibg must be done to save them!

another way is that movie 'Tucker: a man and his dream' many would say he went out of business b/c he wasn't good enough so he failed. But isn't saving these greedy fucks the opposite of that? isn't that giving them unfair advantages in the market place? Maybe another american car company would rise up in their place, I thought that was how capitalism was supposed to work.

sponger

Not to mention, for many states, a whole bunch of people suddenly filing for unemployment checks would literally bankrupt the state governments.

So, it's not like we've all the sudden turned to socialism. It's that socialism has already existed in the form of state services such as unemployment, medicare and so forth.

Commy

sponger wrote:

Not to mention, for many states, a whole bunch of people suddenly filing for unemployment checks would literally bankrupt the state governments.

So, it's not like we've all the sudden turned to socialism. It's that socialism has already existed in the form of state services such as unemployment, medicare and so forth.

right, corporate unemployment and so on. they've been taking care of CEOS for decades.

Mutiny! he cried

sponger wrote:

Not to mention, for many states, a whole bunch of people suddenly filing for unemployment checks would literally bankrupt the state governments.

So, it's not like we've all the sudden turned to socialism. It's that socialism has already existed in the form of state services such as unemployment, medicare and so forth.

Well hooray for the banks and vultures who created this mess while next to nothing is done for the people losing their homes and/or jobs.

They didn't care b/c before they just took the house back and resold it but now the market fell out and they left holding the potato and suddenly all their schemes and speculating and derivatives are falling apart...their house of cards are falling due to their own greed.

It looks to me like loooots of people ARE losing their jobs to me. And who's getting the overwhelming bulk of the help?

That's not socialisn, according to FDR that's fascism.

DriftingByTheStorm

Mutiny! he cried wrote:

That's not socialisn, according to FDR that's fascism.

Ding ding ding.
Correct answer.

FDR wrote:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

What we have here is a banking system that was purposely designed by its owners (the international banksters) to place the government subservient to the banks.

It isn't "anti-capitalism", it is "monopoly capitalism", and it is the banks that have an outright monopoly over the government itself.

:(

unifiedscene

Mutiny! he cried wrote:

Then bail out the ppl who can't get a loan instead of the mismanaged firms who got a little too carried away w/ speculations and derivatives and casino capitalism and most of all their greed. Why help the greedy instead of mom and pop's vcr repair shop?

A-fuckin-men. I think it shows how fucked up our priorities are that Ford collapsings because their cars are 15 years behind the competition makes people "sick to the stomach" but mom and pop starving because Wal-Mart moved into town is just business as usual and maybe they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Profits over people, people. Get it right. It's only anti-capitalism when you're giving money to poor people that are unworthy. As long as you're giving the money to the obscenely wealthy, it's just like patting each other on the back for being such great capitalists.

OutOfBreath

Isn't it really a twist of the good old:
"You owe the bank a million, you got a problem. You owe the bank 10 million, the bank has a problem"

Also note that in every historic epoch "free trade" has always been encouraged by the hegemonical powers that know the system is rigged to benefit them.

Peace
Dan

Austicman

OutOfBreath wrote:

Isn't it really a twist of the good old:
"You owe the bank a million, you got a problem. You owe the bank 10 million, the bank has a problem"

Also note that in every historic epoch "free trade" has always been encouraged by the hegemonical powers that know the system is rigged to benefit them.

Peace
Dan

Likewise if you owe the bank a $300,000 mortage your in trouble. Owe them a business loan of $10 million they'll take you out to a ridiculously expensive lunch and so you can "discuss" how you can help each other. Just utter bollocks.